Talk:SimCity (1989 video game)

Sim City:Enchaned Edition

Anyone remember this classic? Interplay put it out for DOS around 1993. It pretty much was the Sim City DOS port, but with voiceovers and hilarious FMV sequences (of which Will Ferell wrote).Someone should create an article for it before I do.

--Samr 03:44, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Sims in SimCity

<quote>The meaning of the syllable "Sim" in SimCity 3000 differs from in SimCity 2000, in that it refers to a city of "Sims" (like in The Sims; the game's simulated people) rather than being an abbreviation of the word "simulation". </quote>

This isn't entirely true. The use of the word "Sim" dates all the way back to SimCity (the original), in correct context, as a resident in your town. I know this because I specifically remember it in the accompanying user's guide (which I will gladly cite once I return home from school).

It's correct that the inhabitants have been called "sims" since the first version. Though I assumed the name "SimCity" came first, and the people in the city were called "sims" short for "simulated" too; I've never interpreted the name "SimCity" as "the city of sims". I think this is down to personal POV. Unless we can get Will Wright to speak on it, we'd best stay away from it -- Tarquin 12:09 27 May 2003 (UTC)

We and Maxis can come up with fanciful explanations all we want, but the real explanation is that "SimCity" has name recognition, and this "city of sims" line is just a bit of Maxis cross-marketing. I think the sentence should be dropped unless we get a verbatim quote, this is the kind of stuff that marketeers like to get the press to repeat without attribution. (Not to suggest that I've ever participated in anything like this, ahem. :-) ) Stan 15:17 27 May 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. -- Tarquin 15:33 27 May 2003 (UTC)

It looks like the concensous of this discussion is that the referenced sentence should be dropped. However, it was still in the article, so I removed it. I agree with the OP, though. The inhabitants of SimCity were always known as "Sims" long before there was even the idea of "The Sims" as a seperate game. —Frecklefoot 15:02, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Why does Sim City 4 have its own article? It is very confusing that all the others stay in this article, and 4 gets its own. Greenmountainboy 02:18, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It's been hard to get consensus on when to split game articles. In general encyclopedia content starts to get pretty thin for later games in a series, but if the game were radically different and shared only the name, it might make sense, or maybe if you had a half-dozen illustrative screenshots. In its current state, our SC4 info could be equally validly merged or separated. Stan 05:23, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The "Sim" in the Sim games comes from "Simulated". SimCity = Simulated City, SimTower = Simulated Tower. That's it, nothing more, nothing less.

It just so happened that in the original SimCity that the guy writing the manual thought that it would be "unique" to refer to the citizens of the city as "Sims" (since, after all, they are "Simulated People").

Of course, if I had my way, "The Sims" would actually be called "SimUnrealisticNeighbourhood". Before "The Sims" virtually all the Sim games were supposed to be realistic simulations for "edutainment", spare the "Kids" games (See List of Sim games) SimCity was intended to be semi-serious, SimTower (whilst not primarily developed by Maxis) was intended as an elevator simulation for Japanese architects, SimLife was for school biologists showing how natural selection works, ditto El Fish. I fail to see how "The Sims" is in any way educational or realistic.

Not saying that Maxis can't be creative, take a look at Streets of SimCity, but I feel they've been cheapened by EA, we won't be seeing another SimHealth, thats for sure.

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Linux versions

The article states that 3000 was the first and only version released for Linux. However, there was a release for Linux of the original SimCity. ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/games/strategy/scl_lnx_3.6b.lsm

When was it released? Is it an "official" version of the game? Put the info in the article (please put download link in extern links section and not in the article proper). Thanks! — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:43, Jul 12, 2004 (UTC)

SimCity 3000 more buggy?

Some people consider SC2K to be a better game than SimCity 3000 since the two are essentially the same and because of SC3K's greater system requirements, bugs, and game-play issues.

I'd love to see anybody try and prove that SimCity 3000 is buggier than SimCity 2000. Did you know that SimCity 2000 has a good chunk of its codebase taken from The Sims? (Yes, I know it was aeons before The Sims was actually finished and released -- the game was actually that old!) This is somewhat akin to taking Super Mario Brothers and using the code to write Super Mario RPG. Well, maybe not, but the point is, it's a recipe for disaster. SimCity 2000 is full of bugs — check out "SimCity 2000: Power, Politics, and Planning, Revised Edition". It almost seems as though every other footnote mentions a bug, some of them very serious, amounting to things such as highways being entirely useless. There's no doubt that SimCity 3000 has bugs, it might even be a "buggy" game, but SimCity 2000 has got to be far worse in that regard (and, in my opinion, most other regards, but that's just my opinion). - Furrykef 04:52, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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Ideograms for the Chinese, Japanese and Korean titles

I found this comment in the source for the article:

someone should add the correct ideograms for the Chinese, Japanese and Korean titles

My reply is "why?" This is not the Chinese, Japanese or Korean version of the article. Those ideograms can be added to the articles in those versions of the 'pedia. They would only be appropriate if they somehow applied to the English version of the game. — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:19, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

It's the same reason why the german version is written as "SimCity 3000 Deutschland" and not "SimCity 3000 Germany".

What I meant was, why do we have the titles for the foreign version of SimCity in the article at all? There's nothing really striking about them. There're just useless content. What is so notable about the German version of SimCity 3000 being called SimCity 3000 Deutschland (Deutschland being what Germans refer to Germany as). What should they called it, SimCity 3000 Oktoberfest? I think we should just get rid of the foreign titles. They don't add anything to the article. — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:10, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

About Sin City...

Hello everyone:

I just saw Sin City (the movie) recently and I was wondering if we should add a cross-reference to top of the SimCity and Sin City pages to help non-computer or non-movie people keep the two distinct (as has been done with steganography and stenography). What does everyone think?

--Coolcaesar 13:09, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a potentially easily made mistake. Cburnett 13:24, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

I first heard the end of a trailer for sin city and i thought to myself: "Sim City?! It's a great game but bound to be a boring movie!" :) --Will2k 13:45, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's been a week and no one has come up with any objections, so I'll add the paragraph and see what happens. --Coolcaesar 19:39, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's done. Come to think of it, I'm surprised Maxis didn't sue Frank Miller for trademark infringement when the Sin City movie came out. But then the consumer confusion standard is very high and difficult to meet in the Ninth Circuit. --Coolcaesar 19:46, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Sin City" as a nickname for Las Vegas has been around much longer than SimCity has been. That is possibly the source of the name, whether or not Vegas is actually involved in the story, so I don't think it's so much a surprise. - furrykef (Talk at me) 19:52, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It has been since removed from Sin City (movie) (claimed to be asinine and meritless), please join the discussion there. Cburnett 22:41, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

No the Sin City talk page is right, there is no reason for the Sin City link, the words are close, but they are too unrelated to be confusing. Probably should be removed form this page MechBrowman 16:02, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Typo redirect

Just equalizing this for the disambuigation article for Sin City. (Some spell the game Sim City.)

Please leave. It's not a uncommmon mistake.

Yes, yes it is. At least, it would be uncommon for people not to realize their mistake and be unable to correct it on their own. We had already argued over this and considered it unnecessary; we don't need to argue over it again. - furrykef (Talk at me) 17:11, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Missing Versions

The 'official' (Maxis/EA) chronology is badly off. The first version of SimCity was for the C64, followed by a slightly different version for the Amiga. (The C64 version featured roads and zones only.) A little while later came the PC/DOS version - which added some additional buildings (stadiums and police IIRC). A little while after that, the DOS version was given a fancy wrapper and became Sim City for Windows - now known as Sim City classic. (There's also an add-on for The Sims that allows you to play Sim City inside The Sims, but it's 3rd party, not Maxis/EA.) Elde 08:52, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

SimSim

I haven't played SQIV in a while, but I thought that "SimSim" was simply a "simulated simulator", not even a design tool. 68.9.205.10 10:35, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Criticism of Simcity

I don't quite get the point of this section of the article. How the hell does simcity encourage statism or even 'evil' things like socialism? I am quite sure that the 'statist' nature of simcity has nothing to do with promoting an ideology, I think it's more to do with having a fun game to play. I mean if the free market did everything in the game, what would the mayor do? Build lots of mansions from all that lobbying money? However, you look at it, in order to have a fun city building game, the government has to have a lot of power. Please remove this stupid right-wing section from this article. Btw, I think simcity is pretty balanced in terms of ideological bias, while there an element of statism is certainly present, we also have things like complete occupational mobility and very little regulation. MvD 19:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

That section doesn't say SimCity is evil (really simplifying it here, I know), it says that some people think it is. You may not agree with a viewpoint, but that doesn't automatically mean it doesn't deserve to be in Wikipedia. However, I do agree with you that the section as is, shouldn't be in Wikipedia. It mentions "some people" think SC is evil. Who? I'm sure "some people" think SimCity is a dumb game too, but that's hardly noteworthy. It's basically using weasel words. Of course once you click the little superscript-bookmark-1-thingy you get a long, and once you click on that, you find out it's Timothy D. Terrell (who?), so it's not "some people" at all. Actually (without reading the article) it seems it's only "1 people", so maybe the section can simply be deleted altogether after all. Retodon8 23:45, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

"You may not agree with a viewpoint, but that doesn't automatically mean it doesn't deserve to be in Wikipedia." Actually, NO viewpoint belongs in wikipedia, as the articles contained in wikipedia are not meant to contain opinions or points of view .--Alex 22:08, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The NPOV policy is that the article must have a neutral point of view. However, Wikipedia articles are allowed to discuss points of view. The article cannot say "SimCity is evil", but if a large enough group of people do think SimCity is evil (for whatever reason), it would be perfectly proper to note it in the article. I don't think there is such a group, though. - furrykef (Talk at me) 14:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Future

Is there going to be a next simcity game??????

Probably not. Will Wright is too busy with his new game Spore, and it looks like those money-grubbing clowns at EA are too focused on the bottom line, which means more versions of The Sims rather than SimCity. --Coolcaesar 05:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussions are all and well, but this isn't regarding anything on the article or its edits. Internet forums or message boards are the best places to find better responses. Thanks. ╫ ２５ ^{◀RingADing▶} 10:58, 28 July 2006 (UTC) ╫

Discussion by anon editor regarding SimCity in The Sims series

• Should there be an article or section here be about the actual city of SimCity which is prominent in The Sims and The Sims 2? Just a stupid thought, I know.